


Becoming Jim

by chicagoartnerd (orphan_account)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Dark, Evil Molly, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2011-12-08
Updated: 2011-12-22
Packaged: 2017-10-27 02:11:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,180
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/290515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/chicagoartnerd
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Molly Hooper is bored. But that is nothing new. She had watched the whole world spin deliriously around her for most of her life. Not daring to participate, simply willing herself to observe. And through her quiet watching she has learned some things. These are things that have enabled her to play the Game and play it better than even Jim himself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Watch and Learn

It was so easy to slip in to his head. Like wearing a soft familiar pair of terry clothe slippers. She had spent most her life shamming. She was so artful at it she sometimes forgot she wasn't some sweet, mild-mannered, girl working in the morgue at St. Barts in London.

Well she was but she was also much more. So very much more now that he was dead.

It had been easy enough to arrange. He had wanted to play in the open so badly. But even she, as new to playing in the Game as could possibly be, knew that it was unwise to frolic in open fields with no cover. Sherlock had thought it was Mycroft's doing and that was just as well. After all she wasn't like Jim. Her methods were subtler because she didn't want the attention. Unlike the men who were just as brilliant as she.

Jim had thought her a rather special piece, carved of rosewood and ivory, crumbling in a far off garden. Sherlock had seen her as nothing but a mundane pawn and both of them were laughably wrong.

Molly Hooper was finally playing the Game and she was winning effortlessly.

Now it was because all that he was he had left to her. To do with as she saw fit.

His world was now at her fingertips, his connections, influence, and power were now hers. Oh certainly he hadn't bequeathed this to her on purpose because he wasn't expecting to die. The lovely look of surprise on his face was better than any biscuit or sweet. It made her sigh in pleasure just thinking about it.

She had fired off one last text before the shot and he had been gracious enough to read it. He had looked puzzled at first but then the realization struck and he looked up to see her waving triumphantly from behind the two top-most snipers.

Because like every one else in her life he had been a disappointment.

She had hoped he could truly observe her but just like Sherlock he had glazed over the parts of her that were real in favour of what he wanted to see.

But she had his empire now and she was very interested to see what she could do with it. Because if she had arranged the death of Moriarty with a few hushed words, some misplaced kisses, and a laugh. Well imagine what was possible when she had everything.

Even though she was sure she didn't need it to crush Sherlock Holmes she could most certainly use the clout to play farther abroad, to bring her Game to the international level.

Moriarty had always been a name, not just a man. She was not the man but she was Moriarty now nonetheless.

She was about to step things up to a whole new level. And she knew just where to start.  
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Molly was bored. Oh so very bored. But she was almost always that way any more. The only thing that brought any sort of animation to her world were corpses and one Sherlock Holmes. But only one of those readily acknowledged her presence and oddly enough it was the corpses.

Oh sure he would ask her for things; compliment her absently to ply her in to doing his bidding faster. She hated herself for bending to it but she did.

He was the only thing that shone in the steel and rot of her life.

She appeared to be all pink, kittens, side pony-tail, bright and cheery. But it was a faded jumper she wore most days. There was a large brain in a jar underneath the faded rose and vine wallpaper. But even he couldn't see it.

Sometimes he was completely daft.

Oh he was clever and observant and brilliant to be sure. But when it came to seeing he was just like any other man, sometimes he let his own judgments get in the way. He was mortal after all it seemed. For as much as he fancied himself a God; unfeeling, analytical, omniscient, he could be just a blind as the whole rest of the world.

Especially when it came to others who were cleverer than he.

Oh yes there were a few of those people about. You know what they say, you may be good but there is always some one better.

Just because she wasn't playing the Game certainly didn't mean she didn't know how. On the contrary. Some would say her decision not to move, to simply observe, was the smartest strategy of them all.

But from her small vantage point the only player she had to directly observe was Sherlock.

She occasionally came across the aftermath of some other players; one in particular was very good. So very good in fact even he didn't put the pieces together. Not until this player announced his presence to his face. But Molly had seen his handiwork in the unsolved cases, the little nuances of bruised flesh, and the quiet things that lurked under nails and behind teeth.

She didn't know his name but she knew him.

And so she simply waited. Because a player so prolific and multifaceted as him would find her.

He would come seeking Sherlock no doubt but he would find her waiting there as well. And maybe just maybe he would see her. But until then she would wait, completely bored out of her head, toying with the torn radial ligaments in a severed hand. It was better than daytime telly at least.  
________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

He was waiting for her in the Bart's cafeteria. Sure enough he was sitting at a table by himself, fiddling with some particularly soggy looking mash. But she took in his posture, the tilt of his chin, and the squint of his eyes in her direction instantly. She knew him.

He was wearing street clothes, simple; an unrefined shirt and khakis. But he wouldn't look out of place in a suit either.

Just out of place here and he was playing a part. A part that he obviously didn't know he didn't have to play. She wondered dully if even this particular man wouldn't be able to see past her shamming.

She wondered for the first time in years if she should join the Game. She had deeply considered once and only once.

But now it seemed like things were picking up again. Like maybe she could join in without being noticed for what she truly was. Even though a part of her clawed and gnashed its teeth at being continuously dismissed.

Oh don't mind Molly she's just some lonely little thing with a bunch of cats. Quite pitiful really. Maybe if we invite her out of a pint every once and awhile we won't feel so guilty about her silly kicked-puppy looks.

But when she thought about that it seemed so easy to dismember them, take them apart piece by piece with her words or scalpel. Sherlock used words to rip people asunder and this man used the scalpel.

But she had no idea what tool would be best for her to use. Because if she was going to join in she was going to make sure she didn't loose. At least not more than a little. She grabbed her peas, meat, and mash from the line and sat down cheerily next to him,

"Hullo! I saw you sitting here and I, well I thought you might like a bit of company."

He looked up at her and smiled lopsidedly with those bright brown eyes,

"Know what it feels like to sit alone here yeah?"

She let her face flinch and still hold that affable smile. All of the possible responses scrolled mutely behind her eyes. Some of them were quite nasty and she surprisingly liked the sound of those the best. But instead she coughed a bit and said,

"Well everyone's new sometimes. It's nice to meet you. Molly Hooper, I'm a lab tech in the morgue."

She extended her hand still smiling. He took it and shook it firmly saying,

"Jim Mills from IT. Good to meet you too."

His smile didn't reach his eyes.

He was good but not as good as her. She had learned to make her eyes smile when she was a child.

It terrified her mum when they didn't. She could pretend Molly was a lovely normal little girl if she had smiling eyes.

She wondered how much longer she would have to keep shamming with him. How easy would it be for her to turn it off? She hadn't turned it off in front of any one since she was twelve. When it was just her and her thoughts certainly the smile was gone but what if other people ever saw the dead in her eyes?

Well they didn't. She wouldn't let them in that close.

But he would be delighted to see it. She knew he would be. And then maybe the smile would crinkle the corners of those deep brown eyes.

She found she liked the prospect. So she would try. She would try and peel back the second sappy skin she had worn for most her life and show him the dark and sharp glass landscape that roiled beneath it.

She had attempted to do this with Sherlock when they had first met but he had lost interest.

If she ever had his in the first place she no longer did. He had a new obsession that was okay if you liked reflective glass. The only reason Sherlock loved John Watson so was because he took his brilliance and amplified it back at him. He made him seem to shine brighter. And Sherlock, no matter how ardently he denied it, wanted to bask in the sun.

Molly had been content to toe the shadows all her life.

After all what else was there for her to do? But neither Sherlock nor this Jim seemed content just to drift through this mundane world watching.

Always watching like she did.

They wanted the flux, to either act or react. They forgot the third option more often than not. They forgot that sometimes neither side wins. That the winner was the one not playing in the first place. And so she smoothes down her skirt nervously and bites her lip a bit before saying,

"Really? That must be interesting. I don't know much about computers. At least not about programming. Turn it off and then on fixes most problems right?"

Jim snorts a bit of high light laughter,

"Ah you'd be surprised how many people don't even know that much! So what do you do in the lab then?"

"Mostly collecting evidence, examining and cataloging injuries, trying to recommend a cause of death. Just leg work and such."

He nods and eats a spoonful of peas,

"That sounds fascinating. If you don't mind me saying though you don't seem like the type to work down there."

She tried not to narrow her eyes too much, to keep them wide and watery like a doe's. But it was hard as she suddenly found her self searching beneath his quirked lips and still hands. Looking for any tell tale signs of something more, a deeper meaning to his words. But as far as she could observe there were none.

This was quickly getting boring.

She briefly considered telling him exactly why she worked down there and letting a truly terrifying smile grace her features. She wondered how delicious the look of shock and awe would be on his face. She licked her lips but held out a little longer.

"Well for a bit I wanted to be a doctor but was too terrified I'd accidentally kill someone to actually go through with it. So this seemed like the next best option. I still get to help people I just can't hurt them in the process."

He nodded thoughtfully but she saw his eyes glaze over.

She had completely fooled him. He was just as easy to misdirect and sham as she had feared. Would no one ever see her, truly see her? She was gifted at hiding to be sure but she couldn't possibly be so gifted as to fool every single person alive, even the brilliant ones? Maybe she could.

But would it be entertaining? No. She knew that much for certain. So there was only one other option. She would have to try and make them see. She wouldn't play the Game like they did. But she couldn't really.

It was too showy, fast, and if she was being critical, sloppy.

Both men blundered through it, Sherlock with a little more elegance and Jim with more flair. But both pieces were jagged where she would be smooth. She had spent so much more time waiting and observing that she knew a few tricks and rules they had yet to stumble up on. She would play the Game with both of them as her pieces and it would be fun.

"I remember there was this girl when I volunteered at a clinic while still at Uni, she was suicidal, and I asked her why she wanted to die and she said, 'Doesn't every one? Isn't that why we're all here? I have no meaning like the rest of you lot, but I'm a bit ahead of the curve in figuring things out.' That was something that stuck with me even after I decided to switch fields."

She wondered if he could sense the lie in her words. That the girl was her when she was twelve. Such a very long time ago. But instead he turned back towards her his eyes once again keen. Like she had changed from a worm into a butterfly.

"Yes I imagine that would be something that you would remember. What happened to her?"

She had to be careful when answering this. She might give too much of herself away or not enough. It was precarious balance.

"I dunno. I never saw her again after that but I often think about what she said when I do autopsies because in way she was absolutely right. Every one lives to die."

She had said the absolute right thing because when he smiled at her every single one of his tiny white teeth shown and the smile crinkled his eyes with mirth.

"Molly I have a feeling we're going to get on splendidly. Would you like to go out for a bite later?"

She wasn't expecting the invitation so the surprise on her mask was real, but it only took her a breath to answer,

"Sure. What time do you think?"

He folded his hands under his chin and appeared to be thinking but then said animatedly,

"How about eight? I know this really good place down the street."

She smiled as genuinely as she was capable of and then said excitedly,

"Oh that sounds perfect, er great! Yes let's meet then."

He returned her enthusiasm two fold,

"Excellent! I'll come down to the morgue to get you then!"

He sprang up and she was sure to watch him go with a look a bright joy on her face just in case he looked back.

Because although he might not think her completely daft he still didn't see even a fraction of her. She was like a certain fictional police box. Bigger on the inside than the out.


	2. Chapter 2

The dinner went like any other awkward date.

Not that she had been on too many, dates that is.

People either took her on dates because they were bored and she was a girl, they felt bad for her, or they were interested in sleeping with the shy nerdy gal. Because for some reason that particular trope appealed to a great many men. So she wasn't the least bit surprised when he insisted on walking her home. She also kissed him back quickly at her door and pretended to be really torn between letting him go or inviting him up.

Of course he politely hinted at wanting to come up so she had to let him with only a little bit of resistance. She wasn't going to sleep with him. But she was going to do something just as intimate. She was going to show him a bit of what he was missing when he had brushed over her. It wouldn't do to reveal the full extent of what she was capable of but instead to show him enough to think he could use her.

Yes that would be the easiest way to join the Game, to make him think she was a pawn, a piece gift wrapped just for him.

So she stammered and invited him inside. And as soon as they were up in her pastel and flower print abode she busied herself around the flat trying to look for her one bottle of wine. She had spent so long living in her pink colored lies she no longer minded them too much.

There was one room in the house that if any one stumbled up on they would think it was storage and that was where she did experiments. She didn't mind Sherlock asking to borrow a severed head or two now and then because she did the same and he knew it. Oddly enough he thought nothing of it other than to use it as blackmail. Like it was perfectly normal for the both of them to want to see how long it took an average sized goldfish to eat a pinkie toe of an adult male aged 30-45. He must have filed it away somewhere or completely deleted it because he had deemed it or her irrelevant.

If he hadn't he might have started to see the shape of her, what he was truly looking at. But that opportunity was long gone and now she was being presented with an entirely new one.

Jim would make her a very bright and shiny new toy. The best tin soldier because he thought he was the one winding his own crank.

She didn't find the wine but instead found an unopened bottle of pure Russian Vodka that had been a gift from Mike after his trip abroad to a Forensics Forum. She smiled at Jim apologetically and poured them each a neat drink. If she was going to do this right she had best come off as completely vulnerable and honest. And alcohol seemed to make people believe you had lost all inhibitions. Well maybe for a normal person that's exactly what it did. But she had never felt much when drinking, maybe a headache but that was it. She had no overwhelming desire to dance on a table, take her shirt off, or spill her life story.

But Jim didn't know that.

And so they sat down on the couch side by side not touching and she took a large gulp of vodka and didn't have to hide her grimace as it went down. She noticed Jim had only licked the top of his drink absently.

Good.

Let him think he had more control. That's when people slipped up or slipped down. She was making sure this was a steep incline.

"Jim have you ever met any one you felt like you could tell anything too?"

She knew it wasn't subtle but then again the character she was playing at wasn't so why should she bother? She turned on a blush and stammered quickly after,

"That was a silly question, too personal, sorry!"

He smiled soullessly at her and pushed some of her long brown hair back behind her ear,

"I can't say I have. To be honest I don't think most people have. Nobody really wants to know everything about another person, no matter how much they say that's what they want it isn't. Because everybody has something that some one would judge them for."

She paused at that answer. It was not the one she had been expecting. It was surprisingly thoughtful and she wondered if it was genuine. But she only needed a quick glance out the corner of her eye to know he was having her on. Well she was too so she supposed it was fair.

"I guess you're right but there have got to be people you would share more things with than with others right?"

He nodded reverently,

"Of course! Absolutely right dear! But just not everything. Like I could tell you this is the best date I've been on in years but it wouldn't be wise to tell you how you could make this my all time favorite date."

She saw the twinkle of mischief in his eye and didn't have to force a blush.

She didn't really think she was leading him on because she was quite sure he was playing for the other team. That is if he was batting for a team at all. She found that she had very little desire for anyone, it wasn't her area, and if Sherlock was any indication then people like them seldom did. But perhaps Jim was different. She took another violent gulp of vodka and pretended to fortify herself before responding,

"Well now that you've shared something I suppose I should as well. I have a bit of secret."

"I'm not as nice as everyone thinks I am. I know it's terrible but I'm actually quite mean."

Jim pretended to be taken aback and put a hand over his chest dramatically,

"Why Molly what are you talking about? You are the sweetest girl I have ever met! Why do you think you're mean?"

She pretended to look miserable and ducked her head. When she spoke it came out quiet and low,

"There's this man I work with, no I guess he really doesn't work there he consults, and I think I hate him."

"I try to be nice and help him and smile but all he does is ignore me, berate me, and then laugh at me behind my back. I know hate is such a strong word but I think I really do; hate him that is."

She glanced at him and saw the satisfied smirk of victory cross his lips before it was replaced with a sympathetic crocodile smile.

"Well he sounds like a right tosser so you're probably justified in hating him. That doesn't make you mean Molly it makes you human. What's his name if you don't mind me asking?"

She could see him waiting for it, almost begging for it with every twitch of his throat and clench of his index fingers. She looked away and mumbled,

"He's that consulting detective, Sherlock Holmes."

She felt the couch give a little dip and she knew he was practically jumping up and down with glee. But when she turned to look back to him his was all false sympathy again,

"Well if I come down to visit you in the lab this week and he's there I'll be sure to scowl at him, don't hesitate to point him out."

Molly nodded and tried to look happy again but tonight had been a great success and she didn't want it to end badly. She also didn't want to end up in bed with the man. So she pulled a tried and true,

"I'm so sorry Jim but I must have had a bit much tonight. I feel dreadful and am probably even worse company. Would it be terribly bad if I showed you out?"

She made sure to put in the appropriate amount of cringing and he seemed satisfied with the development as a whole,

"Of course not Molly. It was a lovely evening and you were nothing but delightful. Let's go out again later this week yeah?"

She nodded vigorously but then pretended to steady herself on the couch from the effort. He reached out and patted her arm sympathetically,

"That's alright I can see myself out. I'll see you tomorrow at lunch though right?"

She smiled weakly and said,

"Of course. And as for the second date that sounds lovely."

Jim smiled a dead grin and then said,

"Goodnight then darling."

"Goodnight,"

Was all she managed to get out before he shut the door.

She sighed and straightened up effortlessly. Walked briskly to the sink and poured his full and her half empty drinks down it and then put the glasses in the washer. After dead bolting her door she headed straight for her lab.

The night could only be made better by a little tinkering with the ultimate tensile strength of elk skulls versus human ones.

She had always enjoyed taking things apart, living or dead, made of plastic or metal.

It didn't matter; the structure of things and how they fit together had always fascinated her. She remembered being bewildered at her mum's screaming fit when she had come home to find Molly had taken apart their rubbish telly on the floor of their flat when she was six. It hadn't taken too much prying to get the back off and the most interesting part had been the conductors.

But her mum had howled and howled and she had shoved her small fists in to her ears and tried to hum over it. After that she moved on to dolls and always managed to sew or screw them back together. And when she was old enough she took the kitchen knives and went hunting for road kill. Or on one very special occasion their neighbor's cat was hit by and car and they buried it in the backyard. She had no trouble exhuming the creature and had taken several days lovingly dismantling it.

After that dead things were her favorite things to study.

She spent hours reading about them at the library and later, when her mum got a computer, the Internet. She learned fairly quickly how to put her at ease, how to hide behind smiles and pink jumpers with kittens, how to pretend to be interested in bands and boys.

Her Mum seemed to be satisfied that Molly was normal, that the nagging dread in her heart was unfounded. So when her Mum was murdered at her job at the bank she thought the only logical response would be to try and kill herself.

After all she had solely existed for her Mummy's pleasure and comfort for the last twelve years, never daring to outwardly indulge herself in the interests she truly desired for fear of being abandoned or worse institutionalized.

She had neither function nor purpose.

When her aunty found her delirious on the floor of the first floor bathroom, an empty bottle of pills under the sink. They had assumed it had been grief.

But no one asked. Not even the worthless therapist they had sent her to. Had they had asked she would have given them the same answer she had given Jim and maybe things would be different. But they weren't.

She had gone to therapy said all the right words, and convinced her aunty and grandmum that she was a normal, if slightly lonely, girl who just needed to be loved.

The whole world believed what it wanted to of her and she learned a new and valuable lesson. That seeing how relationships, feelings, and people truly worked was fun too. It was an interesting enough hobby, a puzzle to crack that she decided it was worth it just to stick around and watch.

It was after that she had considered murdering her family. Just to see how people would react to it, to her, would they suspect or muddle blindly on past her? She was certain she could get away with it and that it might even be a fun Game to play but something stopped her.

There was a boy a couple towns over named Carl Powers. The papers said he had died in a drowning accident but the details of the swim meet, his age, and his physical description didn't add up. He had been murdered. She had wondered by who, all the article was telling her was that it was a classmate, a boy most likely, and that it was done with some sort of neurotoxin so the boy in question would most likely have been living on or near a farm.

She didn't know why but she wanted desperately to find this boy.

This boy who killed Carl Powers for no other reason than to prove that he could. At least that's how it had seemed to her. There appeared to be no other motive for this crime other than pure destruction. Because it destroyed a family, it destroyed half a town, and it destroyed an entire grade at primary school.

But instead she watched the crime go unsolved, watched a boy a few years older than her tell the bobbies they were wrong, that Carl was murdered, watched as nothing was done, watched as she did nothing. And that was when she had decided not to play the Game because the longer she watched the more things she saw happen and more she came to know about what she should and shouldn't do.

So she had remained all cuddly kittens and fluffy pink eiderdown. And when she went off the Uni had taken medical classes to become a doctor and save people because that is what her family thought when she said she wanted to go work in the medical sector.

Because Molly was a sweet girl, a loving soft thing who couldn't hurt a flea. Of course she'd want to be a pediatrician or something like that. So when she had gone in to Forensics they had been surprised but they rationalized it as well. Oh well she wants to help those poor murdered people instead, that's our Molly, such a good girl.

They would never know how bright her eyes shown as she removed someone's lower bowel with a hand saw.

She would still phone and go back on Holidays but they knew she was busy and happy at her job so they left her well enough alone. For some one who was generally, if uneasily, well-liked she was nearly completely and utterly alone.

And that was for the best she had decided that a long time ago. Around the same time that she had decided to simply observe life rather than compete in it.

Even though all the while she was categorizing everything, filing it away for future use should she need it. She didn't consciously know why she was saving all of these observations. She didn't know that one day she would decide to join in, try and master the perceived masters of the Game. But some part of her knew this would come in handy, that patience was her virtue and forethought her knife.

And by the time she formally met Sherlock it was a subtle scalpel and then later when she met Jim it became a handsaw. Luckily both were useful for her work.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Molly is wonderful. I really can't wait for her and Sherlock to face off. It's going to be a bit of an adventure for both of them.

**Author's Note:**

> The world needs more Molly Hooper appreciation. I personally adore dark Molly so this is my solution to that. I see Moriarty as a title like "Don" rather than an actual name so it would make sense that Jim isn't the only one running the show. At least I hope that's where Moftiss is going with it. *crosses fingers*


End file.
